Just Get Home, page 26
The entire building rocked with the impact behind her. Dessa found her feet and ran, toward the distant well of light from her neighbor’s open doorway, surrounded by the building’s death rattle. She would hand Olivia to Hailey...then climb out herself. They could make it.
She reached her neighbor’s apartment.
They weren’t there.
She had told them to go here, but there weren’t there!
“Olivia!” Dessa voice was lost in the cacophony of the building breaking. She whipped around. Where had they gone? Hailey couldn’t have climbed out, not by herself, not with Olivia in her arms.
“OLIVIA!”
The sound of breaking lumber picked up. Screeching. Bending. Tearing holes in the air. Dessa turned back...had they missed the apartment? Fallen in the hallway? Had she run past them in her rush to get here?
There was a fireman in the doorway.
He was shouting something, but Dessa could not hear him over the roar.
Dessa tried to move past him, but suddenly he was lifting her...like her weight was nothing, he was lifting her and throwing her over his shoulder and running toward the window.
Dessa screamed at him. Beat at him. Reached past him. She screamed her daughter’s name but now she could not hear it. Not even the faintest sound could be heard so that her daughter’s name had been reduced to a series of movements with her tongue and her mouth, O-li-vee-ahh. Her daughter was nothing but movement and desire.
More hands wrapped themselves around her limbs. Pulling her out of the building. Setting her down on the ground. Pulling her away from the bumper of the car as she tried to climb back up, desperate. Screaming.
The fireman who had been inside swung himself out. The men surrounding her yanked her up, away from the ground as they ran.
Dessa reached... Behind her outstretched fingers she could see the building collapse upon itself.
It was over quickly. Only seconds really, before the structure swallowed itself. Loud. So terribly loud.
And then silent.
So terribly silent.
They dropped her. The firemen. Tried to set her on her feet but somehow her legs were no longer there. They disappeared beneath her like the building. She folded herself into her hands and sobbed.
Olivia had been there. And then she wasn’t.
Momma had failed.
Just get home.
Home was gone with Olivia.
Dessa heard Beegie’s voice in her mind. Reflecting back from the night before. Even if she’s dead she needs you. Even the dead need someone to care.
Something small pressed itself to her back.
“What’s wrong, Momma?”
Dessa looked up into her daughter’s concerned face. Small furrow between her brows.
Behind her Hailey hugged a fireman. She was crying, clinging at the man.
Dessa swept her daughter into her arms. Folded her into her body. Olivia’s rump in the well between her legs. Olivia’s head in the space between her breasts. Her shoulder beneath them. Her daughter slid into her body like she was molded from it, her natural home.
“Oh God...oh God...” Dessa whispered.
A prayer. An exclamation. A giving of thanks. Dessa did not know. But it was the only word in Dessa’s mind. The only word for this moment.
After
The social worker brought back Dessa’s ring.
The woman held it in her open palm in front of her, the diamond still tinged pink with Beegie’s blood. Beegie had looked at it for a long while before the woman said anything. Not understanding.
“Your friend asked me to give this to you... She said that a ring is a promise.”
Beegie didn’t understand.
The woman said, “She said she would come back...for you.”
And even though there was a part of her that wanted to believe what the woman said, Beegie didn’t take it. She looked away, turning her eyes out the window.
She felt the woman take her hand. Soft fingertips against her own.
And then she felt the ring slide onto her finger.
It was too big. Loose around the pole of her index. But Beegie cupped her hand around it anyway.
“Let yourself have this, Baby Girl,” whispered the social worker. “You need to let yourself hope.”
Beegie’s face was wet now. Her cheeks damp and hot. Hope was for other people. For people with different histories. Hope didn’t belong to her.
And still somehow it had been placed in her hand.
* * *
She did come back. Or rather they did. Dessa and her Ollie. The little girl was dirty, her hair covered in dust and holding the yellow ducky Beegie had picked for her from the highway memorial.
She had been through a lot but she seemed fine. Running around Beegie’s room. “What’s that, Momma? What’s that?”
When she climbed into Beegie’s bed, Dessa had reached over to pluck her off...but Beegie had stopped her. “It’s okay,” she said. The little girl fell asleep there, curled up at the foot. Small and sweet.
“She’s probably cold... Can you?” Beegie asked Dessa, gesturing at her blanket with her good arm.
And Dessa pulled the blanket so it covered the little girl’s body.
“Thank you,” Dessa said.
“I’m sorry,” Dessa said.
And Beegie nodded. “I know.”
* * *
When she thought of the incident in the back of the store, a strange thing began to happen. She was still angry that Dessa had not done something...though when she played the scenario of Dessa doing anything out in her mind it always turned out worse than it actually had. One or both of them dead, killed by the Busman and Not-Charlie. Ollie never rescued, left to die in her mother’s apartment building.
This way of thinking made Beegie feel cold inside. Sterile and cool like a metal countertop. To think that what had happened was the best possible outcome of the many that could have resulted from Dessa doing something, anything, it made Beegie feel like she was supposed to feel lucky.
And she did not want to feel lucky.
But in a small way the whole thing changed in her mind just knowing that Dessa had been there. It made the memory of the assault less lonely and somehow that made it feel like something Beegie could bear.
* * *
Dessa and Olivia went to live in her dead friend’s house. Beegie came a few days after, with so many bottles of pills it took the doctors almost an hour to tell Dessa how to give them to her.
Dessa had warned her about her friend’s dog, Kitty. That he had been strange since they had gone to Gretchen’s home. That something had fallen on him during the earthquake and he was limping. And that he was sad and scared, waiting for his owner who was never going to come back.
But if Kitty was sad, he didn’t seem like it to Beegie. He accepted her fine, sitting on the couch with her when she let him. Sitting on the ground next to her when she didn’t.
She thought it was funny. That she was meeting another dog named for a different animal. Rooster. Kitty. Maybe somewhere there was a chicken and a cat named dog.
* * *
There were a few times that Ollie asked if they could go to the zoo. Beegie and Dessa were always silent for a moment after that...before Dessa would tell her daughter, “Someday, honey.”
Someday when the power came back. When the rules applied.
When the animals were back in their cages.
* * *
It was quiet for a very long time. The electricity didn’t come back on for weeks. So they went to bed with the light. Played games by the window. Ollie drew pictures with Gretchen’s ballpoint pens on sheets of yellow paper.
They wore Gretchen’s things because they didn’t have any of their own. The dead woman’s pants and shirts were too big for both of them, slipping off of their shoulders and hips. Making Dessa and Beegie look like children in their parents’ clothes.
* * *
Beegie searched through the stacks of Gretchen’s books for something to read. But everything she tried seemed too slippery. Her mind wandered away from the book until she realized she had been running her eyes over the words without taking in a single one of them. She missed the company of books.
She hoped someday they would come back.
* * *
They avoided answers. Resolutions. Plans.
There was no talk about Olivia’s father. No talk about Beegie returning to Barb. It was as if the earthquake had shaken the world like a snow globe and assigned them this new reality. These new people. Thinking about the steps that would follow belonged to another time.
Instead they lived the way they had managed to survive. By putting one foot in front of the other.
* * *
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank: Brandi Bowles at UTA for her tenacity; Margot Mallinson and the team at MIRA for their trust; Kat Hjelte for her caregiving; Laurie Frankel for her counsel; Stephanie Kallos, Deb Calleti, Erica Bauermeister, Kevin O’Brien, Lynn Brunnelle, Chris Van Etten, Brandy Rivers, Martha Brokenbrough, Ted Kosmatka, Tim Lebbon and Josh Malerman for their encouragement; Shannon Malabuyo for her camaraderie; Baba and Papa for their support; Harper and Haven for their patience; and Stephen...for everything.
Bridget Foley, August 2020
JUST
GET
HOME
BRIDGET FOLEY
Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
Have you ever experienced a natural disaster? If yes, what was the experience like? How did it make you feel? If no, how do you think you would react? Are you prepared for one?
There are a lot of intense events in the story. Which scene stuck with you the most? Was there anything that stood out for you?
What about each character did you most relate to? Dessa’s maternal instincts? Beegie’s longing to belong?
Did your opinion on the characters change throughout the book? What about their choices influenced your view of Dessa and Beegie?
Have you ever been in a scenario when your fight/flight/freeze response kicked in? Were you surprised at how you reacted? If you’ve never experienced this, do you think you have an idea about how you might react to danger?
Dessa felt she owed Beegie a strong debt for not acting when she might have. Do you think that’s right? Did Dessa owe Beegie anything more than the obligation we all have to help a fellow person in distress?
Do you think it was important for the story to depict the assaults? Do you think it would have had the same impact for the reader without experiencing these things alongside Beegie?
Beegie’s resilience, and her support of Dessa, allows both of them to get through the night. Do you think Dessa would have made it home without Beegie’s help? Do you think Beegie would have made it home without Dessa?
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the novel saw the absolute worst of humanity come to the forefront. Do you think that’s accurate? Or do you believe that there would have been more helpful people?
Both Beegie and Dessa are quite stubborn in their own ways. Do you think this helped them or hindered them in their challenge to survive the night? What about during their everyday lives?
What do you think will happen with Beegie and Dessa in their futures?
Resources
Together We Rise
A nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the experience of foster care for kids in America.
www.togetherwerise.org
National Sexual Assault Hotline
1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)
www.rainn.org
National Center for Victims of Crime
1-202-467-8700
www.victimsofcrime.org
ISBN-13: 9781488078330
Just Get Home
Copyright © 2021 by Bridget Foley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.
Mira
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
BookClubbish.com
Bridget Foley, Just Get Home
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She reached her neighbor’s apartment.
They weren’t there.
She had told them to go here, but there weren’t there!
“Olivia!” Dessa voice was lost in the cacophony of the building breaking. She whipped around. Where had they gone? Hailey couldn’t have climbed out, not by herself, not with Olivia in her arms.
“OLIVIA!”
The sound of breaking lumber picked up. Screeching. Bending. Tearing holes in the air. Dessa turned back...had they missed the apartment? Fallen in the hallway? Had she run past them in her rush to get here?
There was a fireman in the doorway.
He was shouting something, but Dessa could not hear him over the roar.
Dessa tried to move past him, but suddenly he was lifting her...like her weight was nothing, he was lifting her and throwing her over his shoulder and running toward the window.
Dessa screamed at him. Beat at him. Reached past him. She screamed her daughter’s name but now she could not hear it. Not even the faintest sound could be heard so that her daughter’s name had been reduced to a series of movements with her tongue and her mouth, O-li-vee-ahh. Her daughter was nothing but movement and desire.
More hands wrapped themselves around her limbs. Pulling her out of the building. Setting her down on the ground. Pulling her away from the bumper of the car as she tried to climb back up, desperate. Screaming.
The fireman who had been inside swung himself out. The men surrounding her yanked her up, away from the ground as they ran.
Dessa reached... Behind her outstretched fingers she could see the building collapse upon itself.
It was over quickly. Only seconds really, before the structure swallowed itself. Loud. So terribly loud.
And then silent.
So terribly silent.
They dropped her. The firemen. Tried to set her on her feet but somehow her legs were no longer there. They disappeared beneath her like the building. She folded herself into her hands and sobbed.
Olivia had been there. And then she wasn’t.
Momma had failed.
Just get home.
Home was gone with Olivia.
Dessa heard Beegie’s voice in her mind. Reflecting back from the night before. Even if she’s dead she needs you. Even the dead need someone to care.
Something small pressed itself to her back.
“What’s wrong, Momma?”
Dessa looked up into her daughter’s concerned face. Small furrow between her brows.
Behind her Hailey hugged a fireman. She was crying, clinging at the man.
Dessa swept her daughter into her arms. Folded her into her body. Olivia’s rump in the well between her legs. Olivia’s head in the space between her breasts. Her shoulder beneath them. Her daughter slid into her body like she was molded from it, her natural home.
“Oh God...oh God...” Dessa whispered.
A prayer. An exclamation. A giving of thanks. Dessa did not know. But it was the only word in Dessa’s mind. The only word for this moment.
After
The social worker brought back Dessa’s ring.
The woman held it in her open palm in front of her, the diamond still tinged pink with Beegie’s blood. Beegie had looked at it for a long while before the woman said anything. Not understanding.
“Your friend asked me to give this to you... She said that a ring is a promise.”
Beegie didn’t understand.
The woman said, “She said she would come back...for you.”
And even though there was a part of her that wanted to believe what the woman said, Beegie didn’t take it. She looked away, turning her eyes out the window.
She felt the woman take her hand. Soft fingertips against her own.
And then she felt the ring slide onto her finger.
It was too big. Loose around the pole of her index. But Beegie cupped her hand around it anyway.
“Let yourself have this, Baby Girl,” whispered the social worker. “You need to let yourself hope.”
Beegie’s face was wet now. Her cheeks damp and hot. Hope was for other people. For people with different histories. Hope didn’t belong to her.
And still somehow it had been placed in her hand.
* * *
She did come back. Or rather they did. Dessa and her Ollie. The little girl was dirty, her hair covered in dust and holding the yellow ducky Beegie had picked for her from the highway memorial.
She had been through a lot but she seemed fine. Running around Beegie’s room. “What’s that, Momma? What’s that?”
When she climbed into Beegie’s bed, Dessa had reached over to pluck her off...but Beegie had stopped her. “It’s okay,” she said. The little girl fell asleep there, curled up at the foot. Small and sweet.
“She’s probably cold... Can you?” Beegie asked Dessa, gesturing at her blanket with her good arm.
And Dessa pulled the blanket so it covered the little girl’s body.
“Thank you,” Dessa said.
“I’m sorry,” Dessa said.
And Beegie nodded. “I know.”
* * *
When she thought of the incident in the back of the store, a strange thing began to happen. She was still angry that Dessa had not done something...though when she played the scenario of Dessa doing anything out in her mind it always turned out worse than it actually had. One or both of them dead, killed by the Busman and Not-Charlie. Ollie never rescued, left to die in her mother’s apartment building.
This way of thinking made Beegie feel cold inside. Sterile and cool like a metal countertop. To think that what had happened was the best possible outcome of the many that could have resulted from Dessa doing something, anything, it made Beegie feel like she was supposed to feel lucky.
And she did not want to feel lucky.
But in a small way the whole thing changed in her mind just knowing that Dessa had been there. It made the memory of the assault less lonely and somehow that made it feel like something Beegie could bear.
* * *
Dessa and Olivia went to live in her dead friend’s house. Beegie came a few days after, with so many bottles of pills it took the doctors almost an hour to tell Dessa how to give them to her.
Dessa had warned her about her friend’s dog, Kitty. That he had been strange since they had gone to Gretchen’s home. That something had fallen on him during the earthquake and he was limping. And that he was sad and scared, waiting for his owner who was never going to come back.
But if Kitty was sad, he didn’t seem like it to Beegie. He accepted her fine, sitting on the couch with her when she let him. Sitting on the ground next to her when she didn’t.
She thought it was funny. That she was meeting another dog named for a different animal. Rooster. Kitty. Maybe somewhere there was a chicken and a cat named dog.
* * *
There were a few times that Ollie asked if they could go to the zoo. Beegie and Dessa were always silent for a moment after that...before Dessa would tell her daughter, “Someday, honey.”
Someday when the power came back. When the rules applied.
When the animals were back in their cages.
* * *
It was quiet for a very long time. The electricity didn’t come back on for weeks. So they went to bed with the light. Played games by the window. Ollie drew pictures with Gretchen’s ballpoint pens on sheets of yellow paper.
They wore Gretchen’s things because they didn’t have any of their own. The dead woman’s pants and shirts were too big for both of them, slipping off of their shoulders and hips. Making Dessa and Beegie look like children in their parents’ clothes.
* * *
Beegie searched through the stacks of Gretchen’s books for something to read. But everything she tried seemed too slippery. Her mind wandered away from the book until she realized she had been running her eyes over the words without taking in a single one of them. She missed the company of books.
She hoped someday they would come back.
* * *
They avoided answers. Resolutions. Plans.
There was no talk about Olivia’s father. No talk about Beegie returning to Barb. It was as if the earthquake had shaken the world like a snow globe and assigned them this new reality. These new people. Thinking about the steps that would follow belonged to another time.
Instead they lived the way they had managed to survive. By putting one foot in front of the other.
* * *
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank: Brandi Bowles at UTA for her tenacity; Margot Mallinson and the team at MIRA for their trust; Kat Hjelte for her caregiving; Laurie Frankel for her counsel; Stephanie Kallos, Deb Calleti, Erica Bauermeister, Kevin O’Brien, Lynn Brunnelle, Chris Van Etten, Brandy Rivers, Martha Brokenbrough, Ted Kosmatka, Tim Lebbon and Josh Malerman for their encouragement; Shannon Malabuyo for her camaraderie; Baba and Papa for their support; Harper and Haven for their patience; and Stephen...for everything.
Bridget Foley, August 2020
JUST
GET
HOME
BRIDGET FOLEY
Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
Have you ever experienced a natural disaster? If yes, what was the experience like? How did it make you feel? If no, how do you think you would react? Are you prepared for one?
There are a lot of intense events in the story. Which scene stuck with you the most? Was there anything that stood out for you?
What about each character did you most relate to? Dessa’s maternal instincts? Beegie’s longing to belong?
Did your opinion on the characters change throughout the book? What about their choices influenced your view of Dessa and Beegie?
Have you ever been in a scenario when your fight/flight/freeze response kicked in? Were you surprised at how you reacted? If you’ve never experienced this, do you think you have an idea about how you might react to danger?
Dessa felt she owed Beegie a strong debt for not acting when she might have. Do you think that’s right? Did Dessa owe Beegie anything more than the obligation we all have to help a fellow person in distress?
Do you think it was important for the story to depict the assaults? Do you think it would have had the same impact for the reader without experiencing these things alongside Beegie?
Beegie’s resilience, and her support of Dessa, allows both of them to get through the night. Do you think Dessa would have made it home without Beegie’s help? Do you think Beegie would have made it home without Dessa?
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the novel saw the absolute worst of humanity come to the forefront. Do you think that’s accurate? Or do you believe that there would have been more helpful people?
Both Beegie and Dessa are quite stubborn in their own ways. Do you think this helped them or hindered them in their challenge to survive the night? What about during their everyday lives?
What do you think will happen with Beegie and Dessa in their futures?
Resources
Together We Rise
A nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the experience of foster care for kids in America.
www.togetherwerise.org
National Sexual Assault Hotline
1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)
www.rainn.org
National Center for Victims of Crime
1-202-467-8700
www.victimsofcrime.org
ISBN-13: 9781488078330
Just Get Home
Copyright © 2021 by Bridget Foley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.
Mira
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
BookClubbish.com
Bridget Foley, Just Get Home
